IRAN RISES

The General Secretary of the Scholars and Seminarians of the Qom Scholarly Center said that the Guardian Council is not impartial for reviewing the results of the elections and those who have protested theses results are right to protest.

Speaking to a pro-Ahmadinejad site, he added that the Guardian Council had violated its impartiality in the elections several months ago and that it cannot judge what is true or false in reviewing the electoral results.

Ayatollah Sayyed Hosein Musavi-Tabrizi, in an interview with the site Saniya News said, in recalling the events of 1978, which were the introduction to the ultimate confrontation in the 1979 revolution, said, “The revolution emerged from precisely such talk. The Shah, too, would call them rioters. I know what happened during the events of February 19 [1978] in Tabriz. I initiated the events in January 9 [1978] in Qom. [The disturbances in Qom protests over the publication of an article attacking Ayatollah Khomeini; the disturbances in Tabriz were on the fortieth day after these bloody disturbances, a Shiite mourning tradition.] When the people came out in Tabriz, the Shah, [then-Prime Minister Jamshid] Amuzegar, and his Majlis said that they came from abroad, they are rioters.”

The General Secretary contined, “The Shah’s regime was taghuti precisely because it said such things. Had it not said such things and gave the people what they merited, it would not have been taghuti. It makes no difference. Anyone who swallows up the people’s rights is taghut.

He (who had supported the candidacy of Mir Hosein Musavi in the presidential elections) added the following concerning his support for Musavi’s measures and declarations, telling the reporter for Saniya News that Mr. Musavi defends the people’s rights and his measures have so far been just and lawful. “When he says that he has no faith in the Guardian Council, there are many people who agree with him.”

During this same interview, Mr. Musavi-Tabrizi referred to voter participation of greater than 100% in some cities and said, “The Shahr-e Rey [Southern Tehran] riding received votes of 201% of the voting population,” and when the interviewer pointed out that some of the ridings accepted non-residential voters, he replied that such false statements had been said before, too, but, “How is it that so far in the history of the revolution they had not accepted non-residential voters, but suddenly accept them?”

In his interview, the General Secretary of the Scholars and Seminarians of the Qom Scholarly Center also called illegal the non-issuing of permission for the nation-wide review agency to supervise the elections and said that he was prepared to debate with the Guardian Council over it.

Footnote:
1“Taghut” means, roughly, satanic. It was Ayatollah Khomeini’s favorite epithet for the Shah’s regime and, later, the upper-class Westernized liberals.

http://www.radiofarda.com/content/f10_Tabrizi_Freedom_Expression/1762313.html

Translator’s note: Ayatollah Musavi-Tabrizi had headed the Revolutionary Courts from 1981 until he resigned in 1984, objecting to their being integrated into the Ministry of Justice. A decade later, he came around to supporting Hojjatol-Eslam Sayyed Mohammad Khatami.